"Stop trying so hard. Make mistakes." - Scotty Wings reflects on his workshop with All Saints Anglican School
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On Friday, 24 March, as part of the Alternative Learning Program at All Saints Anglican School on the Gold Coast, Scott Sneddon inspired 220 Year 10 students with a poetic performance and a Q&A session where he shared his techniques for performance and poetic language.
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The lady at the Administration counter wants to know when the rest of the company will arrive. Nah. Just me. I say. She seems confused. Like this guy is just gonna “entertain” and “teach” 100 students for an hour… Maybe I’m just misunderstanding her stare. Maybe she has seen a few companies roll through already. Maybe the rain is just getting to us both.
I sit down and wait for the teacher to arrive. Who does so in a blustering wind of outward breath. I’m not sure when she breathes in, what between talking me through the students’ headspace after coming back from camp showing me the theatre block pointing to the principal who loves poets fidgeting with the screen and the laptop and the sound we need to get someone from tech in here they’ll be here in exactly ten minutes are you okay do you need water remember they’ve just come back from camp we’ve never done this before I’ll be back in a sec breath out.
She leaves me in this amphitheatre with a glowing screen and empty seats.
I do some vocal warmups, run up and down the stairs so my body is warm, try to stay calm. I’m supposed to perform and the students are supposed to take notes but they won’t. They’re students. They’ll probably be weird about the first poem, intrigued about the second, then by the third we can actually have some fun.
The students filter in.
The teacher does the teacher thing of loudly declaring a set of rules, the students do the student thing of loudly agreeing. I do the travelling artist thing of being confused by both ends of the spectrum.
I start by telling them my name and asking them theirs. They respond in a gaggle of murmurs that nobody really hears but I find hilarious. Nice to meet you MSHRMSHRRRRR. We proceed with awkward banter because I like it, it allows me to feel normal and awkwardness allows the students to realise they aren’t the only ones who feel awkward about the world. (Please never let me be an artist who enters a room and tells students what to think). Then I do a poem. That’s when everything changes. My voice is controlled, steady. I am loud, abrupt. Rhymes echoing off the hall, madly moving about the space. I am lion, tiger… whatever… Rapid fire raps. A kid dabs in the fifth row. I do more rhymes. Someone tries to beatbox. They are nothing if not enthusiastic. But yes. They don’t know how to view poetry. There’s no clicks. No woops. Nothing but a bunch of kids unsure what the social etiquette of this is. If a cool kid says it’s crap they will freeze up like a turd in the arctic, and look like it too. I hear David Attenborough whispering, “Here we see the year ten hormone barrier and social standing manifesto that is barcoded behind every 15 year olds eyelids”.
I hear their thoughts
“Whatever you do… Don’t move until we know whether this is supposed to be good or not…”
They clap because I tell them to.
This seems to solve the problem and they relax.
I’ve finished the poem and now back to being a bird on a clothesline.
We create a poem together. One word at a time. It’s terrible and they know it. I love it. Stop trying so hard. Make mistakes. MAKE MISTAKES I write on the whiteboard. I do more poems, raps, performances. They get into it more. I teach them that if anything is really “deep” they can respond with the classic 90’s dance move Change the Lightbulb while claiming MMMMMMM DEEEP. They like that. It’s a funny workshop now. They’ve relaxed. Feel included. I’m just there to facilitate their voices. They are hilarious and irreverent. They write about themselves mostly. Their cliques and cues and who is who. It’s all about them. As it should be. It’s important here. It’s real. It’s moving. It’s confronting. They make mistakes. They go too deep. And that’s okay. As a group we say MMMMM DEEEEEP.
After the session they filter out and shake my hand. Particularly the boys. This is my KPI. If the boys who weren’t sure about this whole “poetry stuff” are coming up to me afterwards to shake my hand and say thanks… then that’s a good day. Dab on the way out lads. Dab. Dab.
The teacher has breathed a little. It’s beginning to rain again. We talk about the future of this type of work. She says she will follow it up with Red Room. I wonder if I will hear from her again. It happens sometimes. The lady at the administration building signs me out with a smile.
I wait under a tree for my lift home.
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Scott (Wings) Sneddon is a poet engaged with Red Room Poetic Learning.
Scott Sneddon (a.k.a Scott Wings) is a poet, comedian and entertainer. He is the 2013 Performance Poetry World Cup holder, a board member for The Queensland Poetry Festival, a host and workshop facilitator of the 2012/13 QLD Poetry Slam amongst others. He recently launched his show ‘Icarus Falling’, touring Australia and taking it to the mammoth Edinburgh Fringe Festival.